This meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee was scheduled to review the Council’s preparedness for emergencies, to receive an update from the Leader of the Council, and to discuss its work programme for the next year.

The meeting was also scheduled to discuss crime and disorder, with a particular focus on how the council uses CCTV to tackle it. Councillors were also scheduled to receive verbal updates from the chairs of the Policy and Scrutiny Committees.

Crime and Disorder in Westminster

This was scheduled to be a significant portion of the meeting, receiving a report from Mark Wiltshire, Director of Public Protection & Licensing¹ and discussing the Safer Westminster Partnership (SWP) Strategic Assessment 2024.

Councillors were scheduled to discuss the Partnership’s performance in delivering the 2020-2023 SWP Strategy, and to review the SWP Action Plan 2024/25 for the year ahead.

The report scheduled for discussion contains a great deal of data and analysis on crime and disorder in Westminster. It identifies a number of trends and issues, including:

• The fact that crime in Westminster has been increasing at a far greater rate than across London as a whole, with 10% of all crime across the MPS² taking place in Westminster, compared with 5% two years ago.
• That this increase has been driven mainly by theft offences, which now make up 61% of all crime recorded in the borough.
• That these offences are becoming increasingly concentrated in a small area of the West End, around Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Chinatown.
• That theft is a precursor to more serious offences such as robbery and violence.
• That the economic and social costs of crime in Westminster were estimated at £371 million last year.
• That theft from a person accounts for the largest proportion of costs (22%).
• That whilst crime in Westminster is increasing, feelings of safety in the borough have remained stable.
• That women felt less safe than men, and older people less safe than younger people.

The report also identifies a number of opportunities to improve community safety in the borough, including working with partners to:

• Target those offenders who cause the most harm.
• Improve support to victims and to reduce repeat victimisation.
• Intervene early to prevent crime and disorder from occurring in the first place.
• Give local communities more of a voice in how crime is tackled and to improve confidence in the partnership.
• Share information and work together more effectively.

The report concludes that “the Safer Westminster Partnership must work together and with our businesses, residents and visitors in an evidenced based way to ensure victims are supported and offenders are brought to justice, to reverse the tide of increasing crime in Westminster.”

One of the scheduled topics for discussion was the way the council uses CCTV to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. Councillors were scheduled to review the Westminster CCTV Service Deployment Protocol, v1.0, which sets out the processes that are followed when making decisions about where to deploy the council’s temporary CCTV cameras.

The protocol scheduled for discussion states that the council will use CCTV as part of a wider problem-solving approach to tackling crime, and that all requests for cameras will be assessed against a set of suitability criteria. For example, requests for cameras in areas that have experienced high levels of high-harm crime, or in areas where there are vulnerable populations, are more likely to be approved.

The protocol also states that CCTV cameras will be deployed for a fixed period of 12 weeks, and that their use will be reviewed at the end of that period.

Leader's Cabinet Update

Councillors were scheduled to receive an update from Councillor Adam Hug, the Leader of the Council. The written update included a number of topics, including the council’s work on the environment, the cost of living, and housing.

Environment

The report scheduled for discussion suggests the council is continuing to work towards its target of being a net zero council by 2030 and a net zero city by 2040. It was scheduled to be noted that a Climate Adaptation and Resilience plan will be published in late 2024 to mitigate the impact of extreme weather events.

Cost of Living

The report scheduled for discussion notes that the council is prioritising alleviating the cost of living. It was scheduled to be noted that the total cost of living support package is now more than £23 million.

Cabinet Decisions

This section of the Leader's update includes a summary of several recent decisions that have been taken by the Cabinet, including the approval of:

• The next steps and indicative programme of works for the Years 2-4 of the North Paddington Programme.
• The Stage 3 (detailed) design for the Oxford Street project.
• The insourcing of key elements of the council’s Housing Solutions Services.

The report also sets out a number of priorities for the new government, including action on:

• Short-term lets and empty homes.
• E-Bikes.
• Homelessness and rough sleeping.
• Temporary accommodation.

Emergency Preparedness

Councillors were scheduled to receive a report on the council’s emergency preparedness. The report included a number of topics, including:

• The national resilience framework and national risk register.
• The City Council’s preparedness, training, and response planning.
• Major Events and Protests.
• Housing provider emergency protocol.
• Humanitarian Assistance.
• The London Local Authorities assurance process.
• Emergency Communication Strategies.

The report scheduled for discussion stated that:

As part of a regular cycle of assurance a biannual update is provided to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, giving an update of the council’s current activity in relation to emergency preparedness and resilience.

The report contains a great deal of information about the council’s preparations for emergencies and the measures that are in place to respond to them.

Emergency communication strategies

This part of the report provides information on how the council plans to communicate during emergencies. It describes how the recommendations from the last meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny committee on 14 December 2023 have been implemented, namely that:

“communication strategies are refined as much as possible to ensure promptness, clarity and consistency in all channels, and that Councillors are included in the strategy to recognise the key role they play in disseminating information".

The report describes how the Resilience team has undertaken the following action in response to those recommendations:

• Reviewed the current processes for communication during major incidents with the council's media and communications team.
• Agreed to increase the emphasis on early communication, and to reflect that in the advice provided to the council's command team.
• Arranged to regularly review pre-prepared communications lines, to ensure that they can be used during an emergency to provide reassurance that the council is responding.
• Arranged for training for the council's command team to emphasise the need for prompt, clear and consistent messaging.

Humanitarian assistance

The report scheduled for discussion also included a section on the council’s work on humanitarian assistance, and it described how a number of recent initiatives have been introduced, including:

• Expanding training for the Humanitarian Assistance Lead Officer (HALO) role to Heads of Service across adult and children’s services.
• Establishing a full rota of welfare response coordinators.
• Reviewing and improving the processes for identifying vulnerable people.
• Working with other boroughs to develop a pool of keyworkers to provide one-to-one support for people affected by major incidents.

Work programme 2024-2025

Councillors were scheduled to discuss the Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s work programme for the coming year. The report asked the committee to review a draft of its work programme for 2024-2025, and to discuss any new topics for scrutiny.

The draft work programme included a number of topics, including:

• The Westminster After Dark strategy.
• The High Streets Programme.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digitisation.
• The City Plan Review.

The report also asked the committee to consider whether it would like to establish any Task Groups or Single Member Studies³.

Mark Wiltshire has been the Director of Public Protection & Licensing at Westminster City Council since 2016